


Riddle Me This

by stifledlaughter



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Shenanigans, Fluff and Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 03:51:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13022658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stifledlaughter/pseuds/stifledlaughter
Summary: Laurent lets his hair down, so to speak, when Damen urges him to relax at their monthly trivia night. Some wine and a very handsy Veretian later, Damen begins to regret it, until the fun confessions come pouring out.[Modern AU, for the Captive Prince Secret Santa 2017]





	Riddle Me This

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: everyone is aged up (Laurent is 24, Damen 28, Nicaise 18, etc) and the prompts I got for this were Laurent calling Damen his husband and Laurent being a handsy drunk.

It was the usual scene - trivia night at The Otakon, with dozens of people crowded around their numbered tables, chatting and putting their phones in the No-Cheat bucket on the table as the MC called out, “Alright, we’re starting, phones in, everyone-” 

However, he was yanked down for a kiss by someone near the bottom of the stage, which was greeted by hoots and cat-calls from the tables. 

“Here you go, babe,” said Damen, sliding Laurent over a glass of rosé as he sat down. “They didn’t have the year you asked for…. Again. You gotta know by now they just won’t have it.”

It was their Thursday night once a month trivia event at the bar where their friend Lazar was the bartender. He usually convinced a handful of people to help him run it, and management let him do whatever since it brought in so many people. 

Laurent took a sip and tilted his head. “Hm. I suppose I can bear this.”

Nik and Jord were seated on the opposite side of the small square table, both of them texting away on their phones before having to drop them in the No Cheat bucket. 

“You two can stop texting each other and drop your damn phones in,” snapped Nicaise from across the table, who had thrown his in with unnecessary force. “Also when Pallas is done sucking face with Lazar we can ACTUALLY START!” he hollered at the stage, where the two were fairly entwined. 

“You seem particularly eager for tonight’s trivia,” said Jord, who finished up his last text and then dropped his phone in the bucket. 

“The prize tonight is a $200 giftcard to Amazon instead of a $50 giftcard to this restaurant where I can’t even get alcohol,” said Nicaise. “I actually have a reason to want to win this time.” 

“You mean, you can’t get alcohol because you are a minor and don’t drink, right?” said Laurent, narrowing his eyes at his nephew. 

“Don’t worry- see? I’ve got the Wristband of No Fun,” grumbled Nicaise, waving his hand in front of Laurent’s face and tapping his Shirley Temple glass. “You can stop being overprotective for one night.” 

Damen squeezed Laurent’s hand and kissed the top of his head. “You finished that big project at work, you’re here with friends, and you don’t even have to go in tomorrow. Take the night off. Nicaise has multiple other adults watching him tonight. Let go, alright?”

Laurent sighed and shrugged. “Okay. Yes. Okay.” And threw back a large swallow of wine, and put it down with slightly unnecessary force. “I can let go.” 

Damen smiled and hugged him again. “I’ll bring you another glass, and maybe this time they’ll have your year.”

“Doubt it,” said Laurent, but he was gently smiling now, blue eyes bright and slightly calmer than normal. 

Once Damen had returned, Lazar and Pallas had separately and Pallas was seated at their table, doing absolutely nothing to hide the brazen hickies on his neck. 

“Tonight’s gonna be good, guys, we’ve got so many people here,” said Pallas, dropping his phone in the bucket. 

“Are you done dry humping Lazar on stage? We have a trivia night to start,” snapped Nicaise, and Pallas casually flipped him off. The table laughed as Nicaise pouted, and Damen was about to say something when he felt a firm squeeze on the part of his ass that was hanging off the (very small) barstool. 

Damen turned to Laurent, who was now slightly red-cheeked and smirking. “What- you can’t do that here, Laurent,” Damen hissed, moving the hand off of his ass. “We’re in public!”

“So?” said Laurent, stubbornly putting it back. “Turn around. The game’s starting.”

Damen grudgingly turned around, now slightly regretting his decision in encouraging Laurent to “let go”. 

“Rules for newcomers! Hit the buzzer one the full question is read, and if you do not answer within three seconds, your team is disqualified from answering the question. If your buzzer does not buzz when you hit it, it means someone else was faster than you. Without further ado, first topic - Geography!” Lazar squinted at the card. “Suriname is the name of a country on what continent?” 

Laurent nearly fell out of his chair, slammed the button with ferocious force, and shouted, “SOUTH AMERICA!”

Lazar blinked in surprise and said, “Uh, very enthusiastic, there… yes, it is South America! Erasmus, if you could…” 

Erasmus, who was Master of the Whiteboard (indicated by the Burger King crown that was given to whoever was in that position on trivia night) scrawled a tally mark under table 5. While everyone was looking at the board, Laurent leaned over and quickly nipped Damen’s ear, and then laughed quietly to himself. 

The regret in Damen grew stronger.

“Next question!” called out Lazar. “The Mexican city of Tijuana borders what U.S city?”

A lightning-fast hand whipped out onto the buzzer, and Laurent yelled, “San-de-fuckin-iego!” 

“There are goddamn children here, watch your language,” snapped Nicaise. 

Jord choked briefly on his beer as Lazar read the next question.

“The avocado tree is thought to have originated in what country- for fuck’s sake, Laurent,” said Lazar, throwing up his hands. “Were you a geography major or something? You don’t even eat avocados. I’ve seen you pick them out of tacos.” 

“Mexico!” said Laurent smugly, throwing up his hand dramatically, cheeks stained pink. “Point, please.” He then leaned conspiratorially forward and whispered to Damen, unfortunately loud, “I know you like it when I’m smart. A lot. Like that time after I defended my thesis-”

“Alright then, Laurent, yes, yes, that was great,” said Damen hastily as Nikandros took a very large gulp of beer to burn any of those images out of his brain. 

“Can you please muzzle your husband?” groaned Nikandros, sliding down to nearly bury his face into the table.

“Are you kidding? We’re winning!” said Pallas, his face alight with glee. 

“Babe, how about you let someone else have a chance?” gently suggested Damen.

Laurent turned to him, eyes burning with the flames of competition, and replied, “Do you think I’m here to fuck around?” 

“Clearly not,” said Nicaise. “God, can we please change topics to something that Laurent doesn’t know?”

“Next topic! Cooking!”

“Damen, you got this,” said Pallas, shaking Damen’s shoulders. “Victory is ours!” 

“Let me hear the question first, it’s not like chefs know everything there is to know about all food,” Damen reminded him. 

“Okay this is a long but good one.” Lazar peered at his phone. “When apples or potatoes are peeled and sliced, the bits will turn brown if not used immediately. To prevent this, they may be soaked in water mixed with lemon juice or white vinegar. What is this preventative measure is called?”

Damen speedily but gently tapped the buzzer, remembering the one time he eagerly slammed on it hard and broke it, disqualifying them for the rest of the game. Sometimes his muscles could not be contained. “Acidulation!” 

“Babe I am so glad you are a chef and knew that question,” said Laurent, reaching for his nearly-empty wineglass. Nicaise reached out to steal it away, but Laurent was somehow faster while tipsy-edging-on-drunk. 

“Did you even try?” Nik asked Nicaise, who stuck his tongue out at the older man. 

“My husband’s a chef,” Laurent informed the next table over, leaning precariously in his stool. “On our first date he made me chicken marsala paired with Pinot Noir and a cheese course. I hadn’t even kissed him yet. Did you know what he made after I did? It was breakfast. Because we-” 

Damen mouthed an apology to the table behind him as he used one arm to cradle and gently steer Laurent back to their table. “Hey hon how about we turn around and focus on the trivia, mkay?”

“Next question!” called out Lazar, loudly, in an attempt to regain some control of the room that was starting to lose focus. “Slightly underripe fruits can be improved for service by maceration. What does macerate mean?” 

Nicaise snorted. “Oh god, is that what it sounds like-”

“No,” said Damen firmly to him as he bopped the buzzer and called out, “To soften by soaking or steeping in a liquid such as alcohol or with sugar.” 

“Why can’t they just call that ‘soaking’?” asked Nicaise. “It seems extraneous.” 

“That could imply just water- ah!” yelped Damen, who had discovered that Laurent had a… rather firm hold of the inside of his thigh. And higher. 

“Tell me more about maceration, Damen,” giggled Laurent. 

“Laurent, let’s keep your hands in your pockets-” He frozen when he heard a buzzer go off and someone else answer a question. “Oh shit I missed one.”

“Hmmm, I’ll make up it for it later,” said Laurent, his focus now on something that should not be exposed in a restaurant. “You made me waffles, remember? And that maple syrup from Montreal you got when you went there with Jokaste. Except she fucked Kastor when you got back, so you never had it until that morning and said you felt like opening it for the first time.” Laurent nuzzled Damen’s chest, squeezing Damen’s biceps. “Remember later, when you poured it on my-”

Nicaise edged his hands toward’s Nik’s drink until he was swatted away as Damen as distracting covering Laurent’s mouth with a swift hand. 

“Next topic!” shouted Lazar as Erasmus tallied a point for table 1. “Military questions!”

“Fuck yeah!” said Pallas. “Finally something I be good at.”

“Besides having served your country for the past five years?” asked Nicaise. “I’m glad you’ve finally found a use for all that training, here, in a dive bar on trivia night.’

“Support the damn troops and let me win this for us, Nicaise,” said Pallas, tapping his beer on the table. 

“What is the highest enlisted rank a soldier can hold in the United States Army?” asked Lazar, and Pallas slammed on the buzzer and yelled out “Sergeant Major of the Army!” as Damen worked Laurent’s hands away from his more delicate regions. 

“No one can see us, and I haven’t fucked you since this morning,” muttered Laurent, now in the sloppy phase of drunkenness. Luckily, his voice was significantly lower due to the effort needed to speak loudly. “Please?” 

“Oh my god-” Damen glanced at the clock. Thirty minutes left. “I will not fuck you tonight because you’re drunk, but if you last the next thirty minutes without groping me, I swear, I will make it up to you tomorrow after you’ve recovered from your hangover.”

“I am a deVere,” snapped Laurent. “We do not get hangovers.” 

“Yo I know for a fact that you’ve had a hangover,” called out Nicaise unhelpfully. 

“Do you know why I want you to fuck me?” asked Laurent, his voice low as Lazar stumbled over the next question (“World War I flying ace Manfred von Richthofen is known by what nickname?” to which someone yelped out after slamming their buzzer “The Red Baron!”). 

“I assume because we are mutually attracted to each other?” asked Damen, now gently pinning Laurent’s hands to his thighs and glancing around to see if anyone was really looking. 

“Because no one really wants to know what I want. Or like. But you want to know, and you want to do them, and in the end, it’s how I imagined it.” He blinked, the sleepy phase of the drunkness setting in. “Things never turn out how I imagine. But you make it happen. You do.” 

Damen sat in stunned silence at this admission. They’d been married a year, dating for four, but never had he heard this from Laurent. He had always lived in this sort of assumption that Laurent had married him for his chef skills, his body, and that he took the one constant in Laurent’s life, Nicaise, in stride. 

“What does the military acronym HALO stand for?” asked Lazar, and Pallas whacked the buzzer (which did not deserve this) and gleefully shouted, “High-altitude-low-opening!”

“Hehe,” chuckled Laurent, leaning against Damen. “That sounds like your-”

“Please God no do not finish that,” whispered Nik, eyes wide. “Damen, never tell him to let go again.” 

“If you think I’m letting go of my husband you can fuck off,” said Laurent to Nik, who looked at Damen with a “you picked this” kind of face. 

“Next topic! Fashion! Who invented the A-line and pencil skirt!”

Nicaise snorted, whapping the buzzer, “Christian Dior! Obviously.” 

“It’s really only obvious to the guy applying to SCAD for fashion,” commented Jord dryly. 

“We can’t all dress like a diner owner in a small town in Connecticut who fishes on the weekends,” said Nicaise. 

Jord started to open his mouth to defend himself, but was silenced by Nik’s hand over his mouth, accompanied by a sad slow shaking of his head. 

“Who actually invented and patented the bra-strap clasp?” called out Lazar, who then snorted upon reading the answer. “Oh god. Wow. Holy shit. Erasmus did you see this?”

“Fuck! I don’t know!” growled Nicaise. “How the fuck-”

“Mark Twain!” howled Laurent as he slammed his hand on the buzzer. 

“You’ve never touched a woman’s bra clasp,” said Damen, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “How did you know this?”

“A very intense report on one of my favorite authors in high school led to some very odd discoveries,” said Laurent, who was using Damen for almost eighty percent of his balancing needs at this point. “God. Your mouth. So good. Look at it,” he said to Nik, poking him. “Just... How can anyone look at that mouth and tell me that man doesn’t eat ass? Tell me, Nikandros.”

“Wait what?” spluttered Damen. “Laurent!” 

“Nicaise overheard Nik telling Jord that I seem like the kind of guy that would demand that I get my ass eaten, and then Nik said that Damen just doesn’t seem like that kind of guy. But guess what, Nik-”

“Let me die,” whispered Nik softly, hands sliding up into his hair. 

“Who owns the patent for ballet pointe shoes?” called out Lazar. “Oh this one’s fun, y’all.”

“Bill Nye the Science Guy!” yelled out someone else from another table, and Nicaise swore again. 

“The hell is this about fashion? This is the patent category apparently! Nik, you’re the lawyer here!” 

“Nik.exe is not running at this moment,” said Jord, who was used to taking Laurent’s antics in stride. “He’ll be back online in about ten minutes or so.”

“Animal trivia! What’s the largest species of crab in the world?” 

“Coconut crab!” yelled out Laurent who then slide a hand onto Damen’s knee, up to thigh, up to-

“Yeah let’s slide on outside now, shall we?” said Damen, scooping Laurent up. “We’ll be back in a bit!” 

“I should get a reward for answering correctly,” said Laurent, slightly put out. 

“I knew that one. Tell me some trivia I don’t know,” said Damen as he punted the swinging doors open to bring them outside into the slightly chilly autumn air. In the glow of the street lamps, Laurent’s eyes shone with the haze of drink and the memory of something bubbling at his lips. 

“I bet you don’t know when I first realized I fell for you.”

Damen looked down at Laurent cradled in his arms. “I… I don’t, I guess. I knew that I fell first.” 

“I’m gorgeous. Of course you did,” said Laurent, sniffing slightly, and then burrowing more into Damen’s arms. “It was when you offered to sleep on the couch when Nicaise had to stay over because my apartment ceiling caved in. I thought you were, at best, going to offer him the couch, or a sleeping bag, or something, but you gave up your bed without even thinking about it. He got your king sized bed, I got the guest room, and you got the couch, which doesn’t even fit your giant animal legs, and you were draped over it, and looked really stupid and still hot because you sleep in boxers, and that’s when I realized, I was fucked.” 

“I just… do the right thing? I don’t know,” said Damen, head buzzing from hearing this story. “Glad it helped you fall for me though. I’m happy you did.”

Laurent snuggled up to Damen, sighing. “We better fucking win.” 

They stayed outside a bit longer, watching the crowds of people trying to get into bars, the comfortable silence only broken by shouts of things like “RASPUTIN!” and “THE MARCH OF THE PENGUINS!” coming from inside the restaurant. 

“If you don’t grope me the rest of the night, I swear, it’ll be so worth it tomorrow,” said Damen to Laurent, who was sleepily blinking at this point. “Let’s go back inside, win, collect the prize, and go home. And you need to be drinking tons of water this entire time.” 

Laurent looked as pensive as a drunk person could, and then nodded assent. “Okay. Yeah. It better be pretty good though.” 

“It’ll fucking floor you. You won’t be able to walk,” Damen reassured his husband, and they went back into the restaurant to hear Nicaise scream out “IT’S VERSACE YOU DUMBFUCKS”. 

 

\--------------

 

The next morning, Damen blinked his eyes open and felt around. After having won, they had come back home, Laurent still tipsy and stumbling, and went immediately to sleep. He had sworn Laurent had quickly fallen asleep next to him, only pausing to chug some water before crashing onto his side of the bed. 

Now…. No Laurent. 

“Hey, Laurent? Where-” Damen turned to face the doorway to see Laurent there, wearing a loose sleeping robe, holding a tray of waffles and orange juice. 

“I’ve got your first breakfast here,” said Laurent, setting it down on the nightstand. “As a… thank you for putting up with me last night.”

“You’re my husband, I knew what I was getting into,” said Damen, still slightly bleary. “Wait, first breakfast?”

Laurent grinned. “I know what you promised last night. You signed up for a second breakfast, remember?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this!   
> The part about Damen eating ass came directly from a fantastic tumblr post that said "Look me in the eye and tell me Damen doesn't eat ass" (credit onekingdomonce) because I read that and then proceeded to laugh my ass off about it roughly once a week for a year after.


End file.
